This might sound like a dumb question, but I'm fairly new to the world of performance cars, so that makes me a little dumb as far as some things are concerned. Would there be any negative effects on the car to have one set of springs for normal everyday driving (for instance, the Racing Beat springs), and then put the stock springs back on before going to autocross in order to remain in the stock class?

 

A) That would be a LOT of work.
B) You would have to redo the alignment every time you swapped them (reread A).

If you want the springs, go ahead and run in Street Prepared, where you are allowed to do a LOT of modifications..........

 

ugh. The guys that swap out the wheels for the track make me lazy, I couldnt imagine doing spring swaps for it.

Maybe some coilovers instead?

 

Also, if you run street tires and leave the springs on you can register STU (if your region supports it) and get a PAX factor very similar to BS (much better than SP).

 

Unless you're in the top three for a given class, why even worry about being competitive? I say enjoy your car for what it is, mod it any way you want and have fun.

Autocrossing the RX-8 I went from BS to SM simply because I put the Mazdaspeed body kit on it. Other BS competitors said I was being ****, but I wanted to be honest in my classing and it didn't really matter to me either way. Since then I've put in additional mods that definitely belong in the SM group (coilovers, chip, etc) but the car is nowhere near competitive for the class. Even after two years I still run street tires on my car as well. I don't care. I'm having fun and improving my skills.

If I ever get the feeling I could be a serious contender then maybe I'll consider a purpose-built car. Until then I have fun without caring about what class I'm in or how I rank compared to others.
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If you expect to run an entire season with a club, even if you aren't any good, it's still possible to pull out a trophy for the season. That's what happened to me with the local BMW club my first year of autocrossing. (although I did take third fastest time of the day at the final event of the year in a 325xiT...so what if it was raining? )

If it doesn't matter to you, it doesn't matter. If your competitors are okay with something, though (particularly if it's not a performance enhancing modification) it shouldn't be an issue for local events. Regardless, you can still compare your times to anyone else in any class at any event anyway to track your progress. Locally, I've been tracking myself against about 30 people for the past two years. It's kind of an interesting exercise (and great time killer at work on slow days).

 

Putting the MS body kit on and staying in B-stock was totally acceptable to people in BS I talked with. They thought I was nuts for switching to Street Mod just because of that. But it was a great excuse to justify installing JIC coilovers, Canzoomer's chip and Racing Beat sways front and back... :D

Now I just need someone to put out a reliable supercharger...
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